Michael Cortese uses personal vendetta to deprive SSA of much needed funds
Posted by Greg Laden on December 24, 2012 As you know, as part of a fund raiser for the Secular Student Alliance, I wrote a novella called Sungodogo, which I’ve since made available on Amazon for the Kindle (and in other formats … I’ll have a print version in January some time). The book is about a handful of people who travel across…
You have to read my friend Sarah’s post.
Posted by Greg Laden on December 23, 2012 I’ve been lucky. Becoming a secularist and atheist and, to some extent, activist in those areas (though I quickly add my activisms is mostly in other areas) was not to hard. Hey, this very morning Minnesota Atheists had a show on what you do for Christmas and other holidays as a non-believer, and asked for…
Watch the NRA losing ground:
Posted by Greg Laden on December 22, 2012 The Nightmare That Was Christmas (Death Never Dies)
Posted by Greg Laden on December 22, 2012 
I remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday, even though it happened years ago, even before you were born. I screamed silently, pinned on my back by the massive weight of a cotton blanket, legs frozen, the dark lights flickering as the human-like form approached, its arms raised in front like The Mummy…
Skeptically Speaking #193 Science Books for Your Gift List
Posted by Greg Laden on December 21, 2012 
The just uploaded podcast of Skeptically Speaking is a must-hear: Whether you’re dropping a last-minute hint to a relative, or buying science books for the people you love, Skeptically Speaking has you covered. We’ve enlisted two dozen scientists, science writers and bloggers, including some of our favorite past guests. They’ll bring you their favorites from…
A Christmas Message … From Your Godless Children
Posted by Greg Laden on December 21, 2012 From UCB:
Unpack this, NRA (trigger warning)
Posted by Greg Laden on December 21, 2012 Below the fold is a description from Wikipedia of the Red Lake School Shooting. Consider the details in relation to issues of gun ownership, safety, school security, and whatever other issues it brings to mind. Warning, this is graphic and horrid.
The NRA’s comment on Newtown:
Posted by Greg Laden on December 21, 2012 The web site pertaining to the following video is HERE. Click through to participate. Ooops, I may have put on the wrong video. Sorry about that NRA.
Pan Am 103 from Frankfurt
Posted by Greg Laden on December 21, 2012 Scene: Berkeley, California, April 1986. A bar. Five conference attendees, myself included, grabbing a hamburger and a beer in a fern-bar on or near Telegraph. All eyes are on the TVs mounted over the bar, where we watch footage of an air strike against Libya. This is the retribution by Ronald Reagan against Insane African…
American Atheists to IRS: Stop giving churches preferential treatment
Posted by Greg Laden on December 20, 2012 American Atheists and two co-plaintiffs today filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky a lawsuit demanding that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stop giving preferential treatment to churches and religious organizations via the process of receiving non-profit tax-exempt status under the Internal Revue Code (IRC) procedures and definitions. “American Atheists receives…
Five items of interest to all of you
Posted by Greg Laden on December 20, 2012 1) The number of people who care more about gun control than about the 2nd amendment has been greater for some time now, and it has shifted even further. This is according to a new poll by Pew Research Center: After Newtown, Modest Change in Opinion about Gun Control Most Say Assault Weapons Make Nation…
Let The (Golden) Eagle Soar
Posted by Greg Laden on December 20, 2012 Golden Eagle I hope I won’t disappoint you … this is not about John Ashcroft. It is about golden eagles (actually, maybe its about one golden eagle in particular).
Power, Sex, Suicide
Posted by Greg Laden on December 20, 2012 
Mitochondria are cool, important, and fascinating. You know the basic story. Mitochondria are the result of endosymbiosis. A bacterim or bacteria-like organism insinuated itself into another bacterium or bacteria-like organism. The former was small, the latter large. A relationship started up whereby the smaller one became an organelle in the larger one, and Eukaryotic life…
The Adventure of the Missing Cat
Posted by Greg Laden on December 20, 2012 
Sometimes you just know something is going to happen, and then it happens. And if that doesn’t happen to you enough, try some confirmation bias, that always works! I have a friend who just got a new cat and at the same time moved into a new house, and one of the first thing that…
This is why DARPA scares the crap out of me
Posted by Greg Laden on December 19, 2012 Funny moment at 2:15 by the way:
Oppression Olympics Hollywood Style, with Christmas Decorations!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 19, 2012 He made a gingerbread slave house. A gingerbread plantation!
Gun Nuts Stay Home: No Teachers or Staff With Guns in Schools!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 19, 2012 
The gun nuts did not waste much time after the brutal slaying of 20 six year olds, some teachers, a principal, and some others at a school in Newtown Connecticut to start suggesting that everything would have been fine if only the teachers were armed. And now, after more days have gone by, it seems…
The Golden Eagle Video Is Fake, But Not For The Reasons Given
Posted by Greg Laden on December 19, 2012 Last night Julia sent me a link to a video of a Golden Eagle swooping down into a Montreal park, picking up an infant/toddler and lifting it several feet into the air before dropping it and flying off. Since then many on the Intertubes have declared the video to be a fake while others insist…
Planet Saturn As It Is Not Usually Seen
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 
From NASA: On Oct. 17, 2012, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn’s shadow, a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet. Looking back towards the sun is…
Don’t be pessimistic about changing gun laws
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 A handful of us in the science-skepticism-secularism blogosphere have been saying roughly the same things for a few years now about gun ownership, regulation, and safety. (Here’s 67 posts of mine on this topic. Oh, and here’s another 60 on a different blog.) While we were busy with this issue as well as other pet…
One of the most amazing months ever in space exploration
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 Amy Shira Teitel’s video:
Kids Science Books
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 I’ve got kids ranging from zero to 12 years of age to find gifts for this season. I’ve got most of them covered, and science books have figured in this effort in a bigger way than usual this year. I’m impressed with the number of climate change choices that have become available. Know a Republican…
Donate to help Sandy Hook Elementary School survivors
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 During this time of great tragedy, American Atheists along with the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMA, a SSA affiliate and University of Kansas Student Organization) and We Are Atheism, have decided to come together to raise funds for the children and their families affected by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The…
Smoking is (good) for the birds
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 Back in the 1980s, it became popular for biologists to consider plant secondary compounds in understanding inter-species relationships and other ecological matters. I was doing my thesis research at the time, and it even affected what I was doing, as the wild world was being reconceptualized in terms of tannins and alkaloids, seed edators and…
Unless you really know what you are doing stay off the ice!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 The following is a fictionalized version of a true story recently told to me by two of the people involved. All the names of those still living have been changed. Please do not let this happen to you.
Ebb And Flow Crash Into Sally Ride!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 
Ebb and Flow were the twin space craft that mapped in the Moon’s gravitational field by flying near each other, and then as the gravity of the Moon tugged on them they could suss out how much gravity that was, exactly. The gravity map of the moon, actually two of them, at two different scales,…
President Obama Speaks at Newtown High School
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 The Amazing and Compelling Story of the Tethys Sea
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 
I remember finding out about the Tethys Sea and being really excited. I was just beginning my studies of Old World prehistory, Africa, and Human Evolution. What I learned about was the remnant sea separating Africa and Eurasia called Tethys, though it is much more than that (see below). Imagine a Eurasia with no Alps,…
Sandy Hook: Their Horror, Our Country, Your Guns.
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 
Let me start with this. People talking about Sandy Hook need to stop saying that “20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 were killed.” That is technically true but misses an enormously important point and indicates that you really haven’t thought this through. All of the children who were killed were born between…
How to obtain funding from the US Congress
Posted by Greg Laden on December 16, 2012 Watch as a master engages a hostile congressional committee and makes them melt into his hands. Hat tip: Elizabeth
, which is now available for the 
